Astra Deli and Catering [RIP]

Bakery (?): Astra Deli and Catering
Address: 2238 Bloor St. W, Toronto ON
Website: http://www.astradeli.com/
Style: Eastern European, Hungarian (?)
Price: $

Ahhh, I do believe commercial bakeries will make this site totally obsolete one of these days. Okay, fortunately, I don't think it will come to that, but really, it's still pretty irritating to want to try something new, to get excited that you're in a place you haven't really staked out yet and then you get something which is available elsewhere. This is what happened at Astra, which excited me solely because it was a deli with a few signs in Hungarian. I'd never reviewed anything Hungarian on my site before and the one place that I did know of beforehand (across from Honest Ed's) closed down awhile ago, so I was waiting to get my hands on something Hungarian again, especially seeing as what I did have (ahem, poppy seed buns ^^) were so good. Maybe someone has a suggestion??

Anyways, I suppose I had some pretty high expectations when going in. The deli itself has many Hungarian products as well as from other European countries; there was some German stuff, some Polish stuff. The workers were... Slovenian? Maybe? Wasn't paying too much attention at the time. Their baked selection is very low, though, with a few sweet buns all at $1.59 and then some other buns, a few varieties of rye bread. That's pretty much it. I was going to leave, but noticed that of those sweet buns, there were -- you guessed it -- poppy seed buns! How could I not resist? ;) Taking it home, however, I realized that I'd had this before and was identical to the Sweet Temptations buns (reviewed at Highland Farms... at least the photo turned out better this time!!)... Still, same thing. Not that I'm complaining: soft, fluffy eggy dough alternated with layers of Polish-style poppy seed mass and a small drizzle of icing on top. It was good... just nothing new. And yes, I realize you could say I had it coming going to a place that's not a bakery, but pffff, don't remind me. :/

Rating: **1/2